


This is Jim from IT.  How May I Help You?

by Lunavere



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s01e03 The Great Game, Fun, Gen, Rather Pointless, The Great Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-21
Updated: 2013-02-21
Packaged: 2017-11-30 00:27:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/693256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunavere/pseuds/Lunavere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Sherlock "experimented" on John's mobile, he has no other option than to go to Jim from IT in order to get it fixed.</p><p>Luckily, Jim is just the man for the job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is Jim from IT.  How May I Help You?

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [This is Jim from IT. How May I Help You? 这里是IT部的Jim,有什么要我帮您的吗？](https://archiveofourown.org/works/790192) by [Maypromise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maypromise/pseuds/Maypromise)



John felt like an arse.  A complete and utter arse.  Honestly, he should be ashamed of himself for doing this, especially knowing what he knew.  But Sherlock was busy with the not-so-retro trainers, and he probably wouldn’t help John with something so petty anyway… even if it only took a few seconds.  Even so, this couldn’t really wait any longer, as John was incapable of using his phone.  And he _needed_ his mobile.  Slinking up to the IT floor in St. Bart’s, John popped in and began to glanced around.  Each person was hustling and bustling in their cubicles, trying to do some thing or another.  He craned his neck as he searched for a familiar face.

“Looking for someone, sir?” a red-haired man inquired.

“Um…  Yes, actually,” John responded.  “I’m looking for Jim.  Do you happen to know him?”

The man’s eyes lit up in recognition.  “Oh.  Jim’s in the far back cubicle on the left-hand side,” he answered before walking off without another word.

Slowly, John headed in the direction indicated.  He rounded the corner to see a familiar form.  Jim had his back to him, reclining in a chair.  It was obvious that he had headphones in his ears, and John could see an episode of that new American hit _Glee_ playing on the computer screen.  Hesitantly, John reached forward and tapped Jim on the shoulder.

“Whoa!” Jim exclaimed, jerking around hard.  His headphones were ripped out of his ears in the process, and he stared at John with wide eyes.  “Holy shit, mate.  You scared the Hell out of me!”

John flushed slightly despite himself.  “My apologies.  I didn’t know you would be watching… um…”  Vaguely, he motioned towards the computer screen.

Going a bit red himself, Jim answered, “Yeah.  Molly showed me it when I came over to her flat once.  It’s actually a pretty good show once you – you know – get past all the teenage drama.  At the very least, they are talented singers.  And they have a gay kid with a fairly nice plot to him, which is saying something for the Americans, you know?”

“Yeah,” John answered, nodding slightly.  It struck John as strange.  After Sherlock deduced Jim’s sexuality earlier that same day, he figured that Molly would have gone straight to Jim to, at the very least, talk everything out.  But he seemed rather perky, actually, which meant that it was possible that John had beaten her to Jim.  Well, if nothing else, it made everything slightly less awkward.

“Ah, but I’m assuming that you aren’t here to listen to me talk about _Glee_ ,” Jim replied, standing up.  John couldn’t help but notice the flash of neon green underwear.  Part of him wondered why anyone would think it was a good idea to wear such things in a work environment.  Another part of him reminded the first that it was none of his damn business.  “What do you need?”

Pulling out his mobile phone, John responded, “I know it’s probably not the best time-”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Jim cut in, clearly perplexed by the statement.  So Molly _hadn’t_ been by to see him yet.

“Ah…  What with you at work and all,” John recovered, covering up his blunder pretty well.  “But, well, Sherlock got a hold of my mobile, and he changed some of the settings… including the language.  He’s working right now, and I cannot figure how to get it back to what it was before.  Or, at least, in English.”

Laughing, Jim took the phone and began to fiddle with it.  “Looks like Cyrillic script,” he noted, tilting his head ever so slightly.  His eyes narrowed as he began to click some of the keys.  “Do you know _why_ he did this?”

“If there’s one thing you need to know about Sherlock, it’s that there’s always a method to his madness.  If there’s two things you need to know, it’s that you will probably never understand the first,” John explained matter-of-factly.  He even doubted that he would ever be able to truly understand Sherlock Holmes, although he was going to try his damnedest to do so.

Jim nodded in acknowledgement.  “Molly speaks very highly of him,” he commented as he started fiddling with John’s mobile phone again.  “She holds him in high regard.  And I can see why.  He seems very intelligent.  Not to mention that he is good-looking.  Well, in that quiet, brooding sort of way, you know?”

Grimacing, John glanced away in hopes of finding something that would distract him.  The last thing he wanted to talk about was Sherlock Holmes’s attractiveness.  Especially not with a man who was probably going to be dumped because of his interest in Sherlock.  “Um… yeah, I suppose he has his certain charm.”  His eyes locked onto the computer once more, and he remembered what he had walked in on.  “So are you on break right now or…?”

Jim looked up in confusion before following John’s line of sight.  “Oh,” he said noncommittally, his face turning a bit red.  He returned to John’s mobile.  “No.  It isn’t.  But as long as my phone doesn’t ring, I don’t have to be doing anything else.  I’m relatively new here, you see, and they don’t trust me with anything important just yet.”

“Ah,” John responded.  That made sense, he supposed.  Although it was curious to see everyone else hustling and bustling about while Jim just relaxed, watching _Glee_ during his downtime.

“There.  It’s back in English,” Jim stated proudly.  Then his eyebrows came together.  “Your clock is wrong.”

Nodding, John answered, “Yeah.  That was one of the things that got messed up.  It’s set to the time zone in Afghanistan for whatever reason.  I don’t know…  Can you switch it back?”

“Yeah.  That’s no problem,” Jim stated, beginning to click the buttons once more.  “Did you look it up?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Jim clarified, “The time zone.  You knew that it was in Afghanistan.  Did you look that up?”

“No.  I used to serve overseas,” John told him, giving a slight shrug of his shoulders.

Jim’s eyes widened a touch.  “Oh.  I see.  I didn’t know that you used to be in the army.”

“I take it that Molly doesn’t talk about me then,” John teased, smiling at Jim.

Shaking his head, Jim answered, “No.  Not particularly.”  He looked up from the mobile for a moment.  “Your time is changed back.  Is there anything else that you need to have fixed?”

John paused for a moment, trying to remember any other issues he had with the phone.  “No.  I think that’s it.”

Jim handed the phone back over, beaming at John all the while.  “If you’re interested, you can fill out a survey on our website about the customer service that you received today,” he jokingly said.

John laughed.  “I’ll make sure to do that.  They have just bloody awful service here.”

Eyes widening, Jim pretended to be offended.  “How dare you say something like that!  We are top-notch workers here.”  Suddenly, his phone began to ring.  Jim sighed and held up a finger before answering, “Hello, this is Jim.  How may I help you today?”  He looked over at John in exasperation, and John couldn’t help but recline and smile in response.  “Have you tried turning it off and back on?”

With that, John burst out laughing.  Jim shot him a look, and he barely managed to calm down.  “Sorry!” he whispered, and Jim nodded in acknowledgement.

“And did that solve your problem?” Jim inquired, rolling his eyes.  “I’m so glad that I could help, ma’am.  Have a lovely day.”  With that, he slammed the phone back down on the receiver.  “Seriously, you think that people would just _naturally_ try to reboot something before calling IT.  But no, that idea always somehow escapes their mind.  Then they call up, complaining that they have tried _everything_ to get it to work again.  Well, everything except that, of course.”

John couldn’t help but smile as he listened to Jim’s rant.  After all, he knew what it was like to work with frustrating people – mothers who were insistent that their child has a terminal illness because they have Google at their fingertips now or another doctor who prefers one method over another and feels the need to press their opinion on everyone else.  “Well, thank you so very much for your help.”

Waving off the comment, Jim said, “It’s nothing at all.  Just part of a day’s work.”

“Even so-” John started to say.

Suddenly, Molly rounded the corner, declaring in a remarkably confident voice, “I’m breaking up with you, Jim!”  Both John and Jim stood in mute shock as she registered that Jim wasn’t alone.  Turning beet red, she stammered, “Oh.  Oh, I’m so sorry.  I didn’t know you would be here… um… um…”

“John,” Jim filled in for her, his voice sounding just a bit bitter.  “His name is John.  Now what is all of this about you breaking up with me?”

Flustered, Molly glanced over at Jim and back at John, who immediately knew that he was unwanted.  “I’ll just…” he began to say.

“That would be best,” Molly answered softly, pain reflected on her face.

Offering a soft smile, John gave both of them a nod before heading off.  He was so grateful that he was on the outside of this ordeal.  After however many breakups he had been through, John was hardly scared of them, but that didn’t make them any easier to go through.  This was one he could walk away from, and he was practically sprinting.  Getting into the lift, John clicked the button for the basement.  Maybe he should pop in later just to see how Jim was doing.

_–_–_–_–_

Hours later, John wandered up to the cafeteria.  Sherlock was running some final tests, trying desperately to figure out how on Earth this Carl Powers died.  John was feeling a bit nauseated.  With every minute, they were losing time, and he knew that some poor person was out there, strapped up with a bomb, just waiting to be blown up.  He could only imagine how awful it had to be for that person – to be staring death in the face for hours – to be so helpless against it.  But Sherlock would figure everything out.  He always figured everything out.

As he headed in, he noticed a familiar face, and his heart sank a bit.  It was Jim – with red eyes and a red nose and clearly distressed.  Their eyes met, and Jim forced himself to give John a smile.  With a sigh, John headed over.  He knew better, after all.  There was no getting out of this one.  They had made eye contact, and now John was going to have to go through the awkward process of comforting Jim.  Sitting down across from him, John opened his mouth to say something only for Jim to speak first.

“That’s what you meant when you said earlier that it must be a bad time.  You thought that Molly had already broken up with me,” Jim accused softly, sniffling.

With a sigh, John reached over and snagged a napkin out of the holder.  He handed it to Jim, who took it and discarded his other, already crumpled napkin.  “Yeah, I did,” he answered honestly.

“Sherlock informed her about my sexual orientation,” Jim said spitefully.

Nodding, John responded, “It probably wasn’t a smart move for you to leave Sherlock your number.  I mean, Jim, how did that even seem like a good idea to you?”

Jim grimaced.  “Molly talked so much about him.  Just all the time.  I thought that maybe I could get to know him, too.  You know?  Find some common ground with her.  But I just got so nervous that I didn’t know what else to do.  So I decided to leave him my card.  You know – put the ball in his court,” he responded earnestly.  He shook his head as his face contorted in pain.  “I never thought that he would out me as a closeted gay man.”

“It’s probably for the better, though,” John pointed out.  “You and Molly would have never worked out in the end, after all.  It was good that you guys could nip it in the bud before it got too serious, you know?  Besides, Molly’s sweet.  She’ll probably still be your friend once everything sort of simmers down.”

Sniffling again, Jim nodded and wiped his still running nose.  At the very least, he seemed to be feeling better.  “Yeah.  Yeah, she really is nice, isn’t she?  But I don’t know if she’s ever going to find someone.  At least, not until she gets over Sherlock.”

“What do you mean?”

Jim raised an eyebrow.  “Oh, come on.  You, of all people, must surely see it.  She’s head over heels for the guy.  No matter what he does, he walks on water in her eyes.”  Quickly, he continued, “It’s not that he doesn’t deserve such praise.  Clearly, he’s a genius.  But she just doesn’t seem ready to move on from him, you know?”

Quiet, John shrugged a shoulder.  He knew that Molly was hung up on Sherlock, but she was, at the very least, trying to get out there in the dating world.  One of her flaws, though, was that she was just inherently too nice.  She needed to find someone who wouldn’t just walk all over her.  Reclining in his seat, he couldn’t help but think that Lestrade might make a good partner for Molly.  He was respectful, and their interests would overlap if only because their jobs were similar in certain ways.  Humming, he decided that he would have to introduce them to each other sometime soon.

“John?” Jim called out, tilting his head slightly.

John jerked back to the present.  “Sorry about that.  I was just thinking about something.”

“It’s fine.  I was just thanking you for coming over here and talking to me.”

“Oh, it was no problem at all.  I have been through enough breakups to know how awful they are,” John answered.

Nodding, Jim added, “Sherlock’s lucky to have someone like you.  How long have you two been together?”

The implication was recognised in a second.  Shocked, John sat rigid in his seat.  “Sherlock and I aren’t dating,” he explained, sounding slightly defensive about the whole thing.

Jim looked surprised by the news.  “Oh, I’m so sorry.  I just – it’s just the way you spoke for him down there – I just assumed that you two were together,” he informed John.

“No.  We’re just flatmates… colleagues…”

Jim hummed in response, clearly thinking about something else.  “His loss then,” he noted after a moment.

“I’m not gay.”

“Of course not.  Shame, really,” Jim commented.

Feeling a bit sceptical, John pressed, “Didn’t you _just_ get out of a relationship?”

“Relax.  I’m just joshing you, Johnny,” Jim responded playfully.  “Besides, Molly and I only went out on three dates.  I think I’ve done my appropriate amount of mourning for her.  It’s time to move on…”

“I hope on to men,” John said.

“And here you were just saying that you weren’t gay!” Jim teased.

Rolling his eyes, John replied, “So your next relationship actually has a chance, you git.”

“I’m flattered that you’re so concerned about my future after only knowing me a day,” Jim pointed out with a grin.

John scowled.  “I’m a doctor.  I’m concerned by nature.”

“Of course.”  Jim’s face had completely cleared up by then.  If someone walked in at that moment, they would have never guessed that someone had just dumped him.  “You know what?” Jim inquired rhetorically, reaching into his pocket.  “You should give me a call sometime.  We could meet up for a couple of pints.  Just chat.  I would like to get to know you better, John.”

Slowly, John took the card out of Jim’s hand.  “As long as you’re not trying to get me drunk to see if I’m bi-curious,” he jested.

“Damn!  My brilliant plan foiled!” Jim exclaimed in mock exasperation.

John grinned and pocketed the card.  “I’ll give you a call when we’re not so swamped.”

“Oh.  Are you on a case?”

“Yeah.  Sherlock’s working on it right now.  Actually, now that I think about it, I should probably go back and check in on him.  See how it’s going.  I wasn’t expecting to be away this long, after all, and it’s sort of a pressing case.”

Tilting his head, Jim was clearly interested now.  “Oh?  Is it something that you can tell me about?  Even in a vague sense?”

“It’s probably better if I didn’t,” John answered honestly.  “But if you’re interested in Sherlock’s cases, you should check out my blog.”

Jim blinked.  “You have a blog?”

“Yeah.  I write about our cases on there.  I mean, after they are completed, of course.  Maybe it would interest you?  If nothing else, I should eventually write up about this case.”  Assuming everything went alright, of course.  John still wasn’t sure if it would.  “Interested?”

“Of course!” Jim exclaimed, flashing John a charming smile.  But there was something still off about his cheerful expression.  Before John could figure out what it was, Jim continued, “Are you writing it under your real name?”

“Yes.”

“It should be easy enough for me to find then.”  With that, Jim pulled out his mobile phone.  After a couple of clicks, Jim perked up.  “Found it!  Well, this should give me something to do for the rest of the evening.  I can’t say that I’m exactly looking forward to continuing _Glee_ anymore…”

“That’s understandable,” John conceded, rising to his feet.  “It was a pleasure to meet you, Jim.  Once life calms down a bit, I’ll give you a call.”

“Or give me a call when it’s chaotic and you just need a moment away from it all,” Jim prompted, rising to his feet.  He offered his hand.  “The pleasure was all mine.”

John shook it firmly, surprised by the strength Jim possessed.  “I’ll see you later.”

“I’m sure you will, Johnny.  I’m sure you will.”

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, no sequel to this one. Even so, I hope you all enjoyed it despite it's... pointlessness.
> 
> This was a small plot bunny that just would NOT go away until I wrote it.
> 
> I'm sorry all of my works have been so short lately. _Pawn Takes King_ took a lot out of me, and I haven't been motivated to sit down and work out another chaptered fanfic again.
> 
> Do not copy/duplicate.


End file.
